# cowboy/jquery-hashchange

This jQuery plugin enables very basic bookmarkable #hash history via a cross-browser HTML5 window.onhashchange event.

Repository: https://github.com/cowboy/jquery-hashchange
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/jquery-hashchange
Homepage: http://benalman.com/projects/jquery-hashchange-plugin/
Language: JavaScript
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2020-07-21T21:33:28+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6080, "days_push": 2234, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1202, forks 252 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:58.390644+00:00)

## What it is
A jQuery plugin that provides a cross-browser window.onhashchange special event, enabling basic bookmarkable #hash history and back/forward button support. It uses the native event where available and falls back to polling (with a hidden iframe for IE6/7) in older browsers.

## Use cases
- support the browser back button in a hash-based single-page app
- make #hash URLs bookmarkable in old browsers
- bind callbacks to hash changes with jQuery
- add hashchange support to browsers lacking window.onhashchange
- maintain client-side state in the URL fragment

## When to choose
- maintaining a legacy jQuery codebase that must support very old browsers like IE6-8
- you need only the basic hashchange event without extra hash-state utilities

## When to avoid
- starting a new modern project - the History API and native hashchange are widely supported
- you need rich hash state management - use jQuery BBQ or a modern router instead
- the project is unmaintained since 2010 and tested only against jQuery 1.x

## Facets
- artifact type: plugin
- maturity: abandoned
- function: routing, state-management, middleware
- domain: web-development, frontend, browser-extensions
- platform: browser
- tags: jquery-plugin, hash-history, back-button, bookmarkable-urls, legacy-browsers, special-events, javascript

## Member repositories
- cowboy/jquery-hashchange (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:58.390644+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:20:35.108656+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/cowboy/jquery-hashchange (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:58.390644+00:00, sha 989beafa508b)
  - homepage: http://benalman.com/projects/jquery-hashchange-plugin/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:27:53.699780+00:00, sha 589388da302d)
  - site_page: https://benalman.com/about (fetched 2026-08-29T12:27:53.709075+00:00, sha 3aafe40a123e)
  - site_page: https://benalman.com/code/projects/jquery-hashchange/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T12:27:53.710880+00:00, sha 5b9a7fe3943b)
  - site_page: https://benalman.com/about/license (fetched 2026-08-29T12:27:53.712473+00:00, sha 25a1aa103209)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/jquery-hashchange (fetched 2026-08-29T12:27:53.714399+00:00, sha 13ccabed27bc)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.